by Ting-Ru Chen
Turkey is a mysterious nation for me, for example its location and religion. Undoubtedly, students who come from there make me more curious about their thinking, family, culture, and everything I don’t know. That’s why Grace and I met Hakki on a Monday night. Hakki Caner Kirmizi (柯賀祁), who wears glasses and has short curly black hair, is a National Taiwan University freshman. He majors in Computer Science and Information Engineering with a really special reason. “I love history, politics, and philosophy, but why did I choose to major in computer science? Computers will change the world, and I want to see it. It may take 20 years, I think, or 50 years, but it will change.” We also found that Hakki is interested in social issues. When we talked about the “strength” of several countries, we thought that Turkey was “stronger” than Taiwan. But then he asked, “How do you define whether a country is strong or not?” In our opinion, a strong nation should have a good army, a developed economy, and other countries in the world would follow its words most of the time. However, Hakki had another explanation: “If the political status is steady and the people are strong, then the country would become strong.“ He said that a country will never become strong only because of its government; it should be lifted by its people, and only if the people are strong the country might develop. In addition, he said that there are lots of brand names that come from Taiwan and are well known all over the world. Taiwan has become famous with the help of these companies. “Everyone knows ASUS!” he said. “How about China?” we asked. According to Hakki, although there are lots of workers in China and their government is strict, the country is also full of copyright problems, which represent a stumbling rock on the road to industrial development. After such a serious subject we wanted Hakki to talk about his family. He lives in Istanbul, where his father works as a policeman and his mother is a housewife. He has a younger sister, who is in her second year of high school. Before he came to Taiwan, although his father couldn’t always be home at the same time every day, his family usually had dinner together. Thus he was surprised when he saw students in Taiwan eating out so often. “People even eat in front of the computer screen. Is this necessary?” Families in Turkey emphasize “family connection” a lot, and their relationships with their neighbors are also closer than in Taiwan. “Once I told my Taiwanese friend that we usually give a set of house keys to a neighbor in case of emergency. If my mom isn’t home after school, I can go to the neighbor and borrow the key to enter.” But Hakki was surprised how cold the relationship is between neighbors in Taiwan. How come the people of the island, who usually convey hospitality to travelers, are so cold to each other? Watching the motorcycles on the street Hakki mentioned that he was really surprised at the number of them in Taiwan. There are motorcycles everywhere and there are even spaces for motorcyclists to park their vehicles. He said that people usually drive cars in Turkey, because Turkey is bigger than Taiwan. For them, driving an hour to work or school is normal, but students in Taiwan see such a journey as too long and too far. This topic reminded Hakki of something, “My bicycle was stolen today.” We explained to him, somewhat helplessly, how such things often happen on campus. Hakki is really an interesting student. He knows a lot, and he shared lots of his thoughts with us. It seems that studying abroad is an uneasy way to learn, but we believe that our Turkish friend will have great experiences in his colorful university life in Taiwan! a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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